


A Mother’s Love

by Chummy



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Childhood, It’s not that sad, Other, mom puffy, puffy dealing with dreams imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29515251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chummy/pseuds/Chummy
Summary: She adored him. As all mothers should adore their sons. Fully, unconditionally, enveloping and warm. She adored him and watched as the world around him adored him too.
Relationships: Cara | CaptainPuffy & Clay | Dream, Cara | CaptainPuffy & Phil Watson, Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 84





	A Mother’s Love

**Author's Note:**

> ayoooo, this strays from dreamsmp canon in like i guess obvious ways but mostly i decided to set in in my SBI fix it fic universe, cause i didn’t wanna have tommy just,,, in lmanburg all by his lonesome after dealing with dream. and by that i mean guys i just love sbi ok, so just, know that. i haven’t finished that series so like, does this count as spoilers to how that’s gonna go? i don’t think so either way You don’t really needa read those fics but like,, you could. 
> 
> Ranboo isn’t mentioned bcs,, I have other ideas for him ok, plus i felt puffy was dealing with ENOUGH in this.

_And Then We Can Forget._

She adored him. As all mothers should adore their sons. Fully, unconditionally, enveloping and warm. She adored him and watched as the world around him adored him too.

With the freckles the sun kissed into his skin on long afternoons, she’d trace them softly at night. The snowflakes that caught on blonde hair and eyelashes, sparkling and dainty. The gentle way he would hold butterflies and bees in his hands, the way flowers would brush his rouged knees, the way the waves caressed his skin. How his eyes rivaled the finest emeralds. The sound of his twinkling laughter as she spun him around their garden were moments bursting with unbridled _joy._

There is little joy in her house now. 

Puffy wakes slowly. Waiting for a pitter patter of footsteps and following voice. It never comes, hasnt for years now. Still she imagines it. Small legs struggling to climb into her bed, giggling when she would help him up, the heat of his sleep warmed body against her hands. 

Her _Dream._ So small, so kind, sweet. 

She ignores the way her chest seems to cave in at the memories. The burn in the back of her throat at the held back sob. She doesn’t look at her bedside table, or her walls, ignoring the picture frames of wide grins and green eyes and her _son._

It had only been a few days since Dream had broken her heart once more. Only a few nights where the moon leaked in through her windows, her only company in the aching house. 

Each night wondering, _how is my boy today?_

She walks slowly past a room that hasn’t been opened from inside in years with the silent hope that one day it will, and he’ll step through, younger, kinder, gentle. Like he used to be. 

She makes breakfast for two. She doesn’t eat at all. 

-

Dream had been crying when she first saw him. No more than a few months old, waddled in ratty blankets and left outside on a beaten road. That was the first time he had broken her heart. Crying and crying and tugging at heartstrings that seemed ready to burst. 

He cried as she held him, as she soothed him, as she walked him all the way home. She couldn’t even put him down as he would cling to her shirt and cry, as if she put him down he would never see her again. Terrified of being abandoned again. So she held him close, all through the night, until he stopped crying, until he opened jade green eyes to her and smiled, a small, happy thing. 

She loved him then. As she loves him now. It hurts in a different way. 

-

There’s a curl at the base of her neck, it’s pattern interrupted and slightly misshapen than the curls around it, still easily blended into the rest of her hair. No one would notice unless she told them.

It hangs loosely, spiraling slightly, softly, not as tightly as the other ringlets. She twirls the stray lock around her finger, stares at the mirror and thinks of smaller hands doing the same thing. 

It was soothing, she remembers. Holding Dream in her arms, rocking him to sleep as he twirled that lock of her hair, over and over until he finally succumbed to her lullabies and sweet musing. She didn’t understand why he did it, never questioned it, only leaned into his small fingers. He never tugged, he never pulled, he only stroked and twirled and ran his fingers through it, gazing up at her with sleepy eyes. 

Dream did it even after he didn’t need her to fall asleep anymore. Sometimes coming home, energy filled and bursting with stories, sitting with her, hand in her hair and mouth running wild until he tired himself out. The years of it turning the tight curl into a loose spiral. 

It stuck out of her hairdos sometimes. Obvious in ponytails and buns, that single stray curl. She had never minded it. Instead coming to love it even more as her Dream grew and grew. It reminded her of him, her son. Small moments, a tickling at the base of her neck or behind her ear, she thought of him, what he was doing that day, how his friends were, how she cared for him. 

She stares at the reflection. Her eyes are tired, red rimmed and solemn, her clothes are pristine, she stares at that curl. It makes her stomach churn, her throat swell with a searing sob that she doesn’t let out. 

It reminds her of him, her _son._ She longs for the times that made her happy. 

-

The garden is warm with the soft morning sun. Rising steadily, Puffy squints as she stares at its rays. She sits in the patio, watching dew drops slip across the flower petals at her feet. 

She bends and runs her finger across a small daisy, flicking over to a neighboring tall lavender stalk, smiling softly remembering how they came to be in her front lawn.

_“Guess what I brought you?” Dream was smiling, giddy and holding his hands behind his back. The sun was blazing above him, casting blonde locks in highlights that were blinding, rivaled only by the shine in his eyes. Puffy was smiling, wide and overjoyed._

_“You didn’t tell me you were visiting!” It had been a surprise. Her son had moved out a few months before, an ordeal that while cost a few tears was still celebrated. Her boy was growing up, she was proud. Dream never really gave her a chance to miss him and though she never said it, she was terribly glad._

_“I wanted to surprise you!” He said, stepping inside and letting the door close behind him. Puffy cupped his cheeks, standing on her tiptoes as Dream leaned down, so she could plant a kiss on his forehead. He was warm, sun kissed and brilliant._

_“You didn’t need to bring me a gift,” She started but didn’t get very far as Dream shook his head with barely contained excitement, a habit he’d always had since childhood. She smiled._

_Dream brought his hands around, holding them over Puffys as she reached toward him. He breathed as he opened his hands, letting Puffy peer over his fingers, where a small bag of seeds lay. She raised her head to question but Dream was already opening his mouth to explain._

_“Lavenders! I got you some you could plant. They're so many that grow around George’s place cause it’s like, cold or something so that’s why, I don’t know if they’d grow a lot in our garden but you can try! You always told me you wanted to try,” Dream rambled, Puffy traced the mesh bag with a finger, smiling wildly at her son._

_Dream had still called it their garden, even if he hadn’t been truly there in months. It’s always their home, she told him when he left. Boxes packed and tucked under the arms of his and his friends._

_It’s always your home to come back to, she had told him._

She planted the flowers at the end of that winter. They bloomed with a chilled spring breeze. She can’t remember if Dream ever got to see them. 

It felt like centuries ago, what could only be a few years. The lavender sways under her touch, easily bruised and lilac. Staring at the rising sun, the same thought that took root long ago continues to grow. 

_Where did it go wrong?_ With stems of _How did I not notice?_ And flowers of _What happened to my boy_ clog and clog her lungs until she can't breathe. She stands, a garden of regrets, admits precious lavenders. 

-

Her arms were often sore when Dream was younger, because he would always be in them. Clinging and fussing until Puffy would sigh and figure out how to do whatever task she had one handed. She had worked out quite the muscle by Dream's fourth birthday and seemed resigned to only continue as Dream seemed content in never changing that habit. 

“One day you’re going to get too big to carry,” She would tell him, smiling at the way her son’s nose would scrunch up and shake his head in the crook of her neck. 

“Nuh-uh I’m never gonna get bigger then,” He would say, resolve strong with absolute faith. She would kiss the top of his head then, saying of course, that he’d be her baby boy forever. Sometimes, she’d hold him closer, his ear pressed against her heart, eyes closed as she nosed at the top of his head, wishing for that moment to never end, knowing one day, they would. 

_“Duckling,” she would call him. Because he waddled like a baby duck on his first steps. It was adorable, Dream had giggled, only a year old as he took uneven steps towards her, who laughed with tears of pride in eyes._

_“Where’s my little duckling hiding?” she would call, pretending not to hear the muffled snorting and see socked feet hiding behind their living room curtains._

_“Time to come inside Duckling!” she would call when the sun set below their garden and Dream was more mud and sweat than anything._

When he got too big to carry, Dream held to the belt loops of her pants, two white knuckled fingers as he followed her around her daily chores and jobs. During the winter she’d hold one of his hands in her own coat pockets. 

She knows other parents would be annoyed, have their understandable grievances with their sudden lack of personal space. But she never did, not when Dream smiled when he squeezed their hands together, not when his slight tugs on her shirt brought her a wave of peace. 

Even as he grew older, and he no longer held onto her clothes, she took peace in the familiar footsteps, always a few paces behind her. The slight chuckles as he found something along the road funny. Knowing if she turned around he would be there with her. 

_“Don’t make me go upstairs to wake you up Duckling!” she would call when he sighed, exhausted in a way only teenagers could be._

_“Keep up Duckling, and watch your step,” she would say as they walked the woods together, knowing Dream didn’t need to be told and trying not to laugh at the exaggerated way he no doubt rolled his eyes at her._

_“Be safe Duckling!” she called out, watching three teens walk past her doorway. She smiled as Dream groaned._

_“Mom stop calling me that!” he would yell, whining above the laughter of his friends._

_“Hey don't be rude to your mom ducky!” George would say, nudging Sap with his elbow. She could only barely hold back her laughter._

_“That’s not even the right word so shut up George,” Dream was quick to turn, trying to reach around Sapnap who George was hiding behind, still giggling._

She looked around the walls as she remembered, imagining the words bouncing and echoing throughout the air, like old ghosts tired from haunting. 

Her arms ached. A daunting soreness. Dream had gotten too big to carry years and years ago. Her fingers still burned from where she gripped one of his arms as she and Sapnap walked him towards that prison. Her arms burned with the weight of his weapons, as she traced the detailed scarred lettering on their handles. 

_Nightmare._

Her breath had died in her throat when she read it. Beside her, behind a mask, her son laughed, a dry, dead thing. 

“Little Duckling,” she had whispered. “Where have you gone?”

He doesn’t answer. It brings her no comfort, it brings her no pain. Just a cold simple nothing, as she hands her son off. 

Dream says nothing as he steps away with Sam. Head down, shaggy blonde hair falling across his mask. She reached a hand across to Sapnap’s own clenched fist, he exhaled harshly as she closed her fingers across his own. She stared at her sons back until he disappeared from view, until a sharp sob next to her broke through the air. 

Puffy tugged Sapnap down to her shoulder, combing fingers through his hair as he cried, as he stuttered short apologies into her wet collar, she consoled him despite the way her knees threatened to buckle, despite how desperately she wanted to mourn. 

“It’s not your fault, it’s no one's fault,” she whispered, holding him as Sapnap shook. “It needed to be done, it’s okay.” Sapnap was hot beneath her fingers, the fire borns temperature always running high. Dream used to talk about how warm his hands were during the winter, how he and George would practically glue themselves to his side. 

It takes Puffy a few deep breaths to not cry about how _alone_ Sapnap must feel in that moment. She holds him close, trying to press the feeling of familiarity into his skin.

It’s a few minutes until he calms down, eyes and cheeks blotchy. He gives her one last apology which she doesn’t accept. 

“You did nothing wrong, it’s okay to cry about this,” is all she replies as she hears footsteps approach behind them. Sapnap rubs at his eyes and clears his throat once more, Puffy makes a mental note to reach out to the boy later as she turns to see a familiar family.

“Hello Phil,” she says, quiet and drained, she manages a smile as Tommy and Tubbo come into view. 

“Hi Puffy,” he replies, with a soft aching smile of his own. “I wanted to say thank you, I can’t imagine how difficult this is for you.” He looks at Sapnap then, who looks at grass at his feet. “For both of you.” 

Sapnap only hums, Puffy only stares back at Phil, at the way Tommy holds his hand, the slight way he leans against his fathers side. He looks so _young_ , he’s so fucking _young,_ it’s heartbreaking. 

Her body moves before she knows it, until there’s gangly limbs in her arms and blonde hair in face, a shocked inhale from Tommy. 

She wants to apologize, the sorry burning a hole in her chest. For everything Dream did to Tommy, for all the things she knew and the things she didn’t, the details Tommy hadn’t shared with them all but wore in his tired blue eyes. 

The sorry never comes, but Tommy hugs her back and she feels he understands her anyways. 

“I’m glad you two are okay,” she says as she finally lets him go, turning to Tubbo who stood nearby Sapnap, a small hand on his shoulder as they looked towards the prison together. 

Tommy smiles, wide and childlike and it makes Puffy feel the best she’s felt in days. It helps, seeing that smile. It feels like the right thing, she thinks. She can handle the way her heart sinks with the minutes that pass by as she watches Tommy and Tubbo smile, soft and happy, like her son once did. 

A sharp whistle breaks the settling silence in the air, they all turn to the tall looming figure approaching with horses in tow. 

“About damn time Techno!” Tommy shouts and Puffy smiles at the way Techno rolls his eyes. 

“Shut up will you, how do you have this much energy?” Techno sighs but the relief and joy in his eyes is undeniable as he looks to his younger brother. 

“I’m so full of life! I know last time you felt like this was a million years ago right?” Tommy laughs and Tubbo snorts as Phil shakes his head. She watches as the kids walk away towards Techno, Tubbo sharing a small fist bump with Sapnap that makes him smile, before turning and waving their goodbyes. They wave in return, meeting Phil and Techno’s eyes who smile and nod respectively, unspoken thanks. 

She turns then, grabbing the tall boy by his hand again. With one last look to the prison she tugs him along. 

“I’ll walk you home Sap,” she says. He nods, holds her hand steady. She smiles when she sees two figures and the lights on at Sapnaps house, glad that he won’t be alone that night. She tells him to get some sleep, hugs him until his head sinks into her clothes enough for the night chill to leave her. 

Her house was empty when she got home. Like it had been for months, for years. Her bedroom door stays closed that night, as she sobs into her child’s bedsheets, her son's pillows, in his childhood room, finally mourning her son. 

Her _Dream._

-

_“Why did you name me Dream?” he asked, voice curious, in a way only a child could be._

_“Well, because you’re a dream come true,” she replied. He smiled and smiled. He wore his name with pride._

-

Puffy is no stranger to loss. Despite how kind the years had been to her, loss is a simple part of life. Unavoidable and necessary. Grieving is normal, needed, natural and healthy. 

She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to deal with _this._

It felt like too much. Almost laughably so, how could _anyone_ expect her to get over this really? She didn’t know. Didn’t know where to begin to try.

Could she really, forget her son? The thought of it scared her, the thought felt like a carving knife in her chest trying to rip out the years they had together. 

No, god she couldn’t. That was her boy. Her little boy. That smiled sleepily at her across the breakfast table, that held her hand as they walked, that told her stories and jokes, that she taught how to read the stars and how to walk and how to fight and run and _live._ That was her son. 

That version of him at least. The one immortalized in the pictures around her house, in the memories that she holds, in a past heartbreakingly unreachable. 

There’s a solemn comfort in that. One she holds on too. A lifeline in an ocean of pain.

Another makeshift consolation is the fact she isn’t _truly_ alone in her grief. Sapnap comes by everyday, spending a few hours with her, talking about nothing the first few times, skirting around the topic hanging over their heads. Niki brings her cookies, they’re sweet and warm and she’s always smiling and smelling of sugar, Puffy looks forward to her visits. She hasn’t seen the kids running around, it makes her a bit sad, but knows that this is no longer a home for them. 

She watches a firefly crawl around in Sapnaps hand. They’re watching the sunset, it has been a quiet visit. She remembers watching the same scene years ago, with smaller hands and more children and noise. The memory brings her to ask about the missing boys. 

“How is George?” softly, name cradled in the air with a kind sorrow.

Sapnap looks up at her then, eyes sad but not as much as when everything first happened. He gives a small smile followed with a sigh that makes his shoulders sag completely. 

“Asleep,” she hadn’t expected anything else. “I check in everyday. Talk to him, he just lies there.” He says. Puffy lays a hand on his shoulder, he leans into it fully. 

She remembers how it happened. Seemingly steady and then all at once. She caught the story in pieces, from whenever Dream would bother to stop by, covered in dirt and eyes behind a smiling mask, from an exasperated Sapnap and antsy Karl, until seeing it happen herself.

George simply couldn’t stay awake. Dream would complain, Sapnap would laugh. George slept the day away, waking as the sun rose or set. He would wake up tired, droopy eyed and lethargic. Puffy had barely caught him when he had fallen asleep two steps into her home. 

She watched over him as he slept through an entire day. Unmoving, unperturbed no matter how much she tried, waking up the next day equally as exhausted. She had walked him home that night, wrung her hands as she walked back hoping he’d be okay. 

They thought he was just tired. 

Then one day he didn’t wake up. 

Dream had once said George could sleep through the world ending. 

He slept through the 16th. Through the bombs and screams and death. She can still hear Dream laughing, bone chillingly thrilled. George saw none of it. In a way she envies him. What she’d give to have slept the past months. 

“What do you talk to him about?”

“Oh everything and when I run out of things I just start reading to him, got a lot of points on my library card now,” he chuckles and Puffy laughs with him. 

“Lately though,” he starts, voice low and eyes downcast. “I wonder if I should be telling him what’s going on. If he can hear me, would he want to know what’s happened?” 

Puffy only looks on. There’s really no right answer here. 

“I don't want him to wake up to this nightmare,” he says, words full of hurt and conviction. 

Puffy hums in understanding, runs a hand through her hair. 

“I don’t want him to wake up alone, despite what’s happened, as long as he’s not alone he can handle it. That’s what I think,” she offers, hope filled and smiling. 

“You haven’t given up on him,” it’s not a question, it simply is, the words are light. 

Sapnap smiles. “Of course not.” She smiles back.

“I wonder if he’s dreaming,” she says. The sun gives one last flash as it leaves the sky. Sapnap leans his head on her knee.

“Yeah, he is.” 

-

“How do you do it?” she asks one day, when Phil stands across from her in her kitchen, said he was simply in the area and stopped for a visit, the meticulously packed dinner he carried said otherwise, it’s sweet. 

“Do what?”

Puffy takes a breath. “Deal with losing Wilbur, the way you did.”

Phil blinks at that, taking a breath of his own before leaning against her sink. She realizes then how exhausted Phil looks, knowing she looks nearly the same. 

“Sometimes I don’t,” he says, chuckling at the confused look Puffy gives him. “Sometimes it’s too hard to deal with, so I don’t. I can't. I still grieve I still cry, it’s a loss nothing can fill,”

“I sit in my bed thinking of him, of what he used to be and of his last moments,” Phil smiles, a far away thing. “I remember how he would tell Tommy scary stories before bed, and how he liked strawberries more than blueberries, I remember how he’d play the guitar until three am, and I remember how he looked when he set off those bombs.” 

Phil picked at his hands, seemed to need something to do with them, Puffy took them in her own, looking into his own red ringed eyes.

“I remember it all, the good and bad. I miss him everyday,” He says, voice cracking as two stray tears fall, Puffy squeezes his hands as she blinks back her own tears. “I wish I could tell you it gets easier, that the pain lessens but, it hasn’t. I can't imagine it ever will. He was my son, even when I couldn’t recognize him anymore.” Puffy breaks at that, she lets Phil tuck her into his shoulder as she shakes with cries.

“That mask,” she starts, interrupted by gasps that tear through her, Phil rubs his hand down her back. “I hate it so much, I always have. I used to think it was a stupid thing he’d grow out of.” She takes a stuttering breath. “I haven’t seen his eyes in _years_ , my own son.” 

“I lost him long before I realized, too late.”

Phil nods, Puffy knows it’s understanding. 

She leans back slightly in their embrace, rubbing at her eyes and nose until she looks back at Phil. She gives him a sad smile.

“Would you believe me if I told you he was kind?” She asks, Phil gives her his own small smile. “Because he was, he was a sweet child, happy, he loved making people happy too.” A wave of fresh tears comes at that. 

“I keep asking myself where did I go wrong? How did I not notice? What could I have done?” Her shoulders shake and Phil mumbles to try and soothe. 

“I ask myself the same and there isn’t a limit in what I would do to be able to go back and change what happened,” Phil says. “But I can't, it’s devastating but I can't.” 

“And we just have to learn to live with that?” She asks, a bit sardonically but she’s exhausted and in pain so Phil only smiles, knowingly.

“Yes. The days go on, maybe it’s easier for me to say, after all I have my two other boys, I can’t waste away in mourning and leave them to deal with that pain, sometimes they’re the only things that get me out of bed,” he smiles as if remembering something. “Actually they usually just sit with me when I can’t get out of bed.”

Puffy smiles, thinks of the nights Sapnap leans against her, the stories they share, the hugs and laughter. The silence that surrounds them most, not as suffocating together. 

“Someone once told me being a parent is filled with tiny heartbreaks, knowing that they grow up and leave you eventually, all the moments that they’ll stumble, that they’ll fall,” Phil sighs, Puffy feels it in her bones. “No one ever imagines a heartbreak like ours.”

“I don’t blame them,” she says and Phil smiles. 

“No neither do I.”

There’s silence for a moment, only the sound of their shared breaths as they try to regain composure. 

“Your son is still alive Puffy, he isn’t as gone as you think he is, as he _could_ be,” he stresses and Puffy only looks on. “You can mourn the child he was, the good man you raised, it’s understandable. But you know him better than anyone, do you truly believe he is gone?”

Puffy feels his fingers squeeze around hers, letting the weight of his words sink into her body. She thinks of Dream, the giggling child, the independent teenager, of the smiling monster she saw surrounded by malicious trophies. 

She shakes her head slowly, curls falling around her face. 

Phil smiles again, this time brighter and easier.

“He’s so lost Phil,” she whispers, thinking of the sneer he wore and viscous way he spoke. 

Phil nods. “If you cannot look for him, then maybe you can be a place he can come back too.” Puffys eyes widen slightly, before she smiles, it doesn’t feel forced, but hopeful. 

_This will always be your home, she had told him._

Maybe, hopefully, that could still be true. 

She sighs and nods, settling into for another hug that Phil readily gives. 

“How can you be so nice to me? Aren't you mad about what he did to Tommy?” she asks, laughing dryly. Phil holds her a bit tighter.

“What he did wasn’t your fault, none of it was. And in the end you helped my boy,” he says. They stay in silence for a bit longer until the sun starts to dip below the clouds. 

“I hope Dream finds his way back to you,” Phil says softly, Puffy glances at the blue finger paint stains across Phil’s coat and shirt.

“I hope Wilbur does too.”

They hold each other, broken and scarred and breathing, thinking of their children.

-

The prison is daunting, despite it being a clear morning. Birds chirp happily around the entrance, seemingly unaware of what it holds. 

She doesn’t know what drove her towards it that morning. Seeing as she’d spent weeks avidly avoiding even looking in the prison's direction. Maybe it was the constant memories, maybe the ache wasn’t as damaging, maybe it was Phil’s words, maybe it was the lock of hair or the way the world reminds her of him. 

She sees him in the tall grass by the house, a child and playing hide and seek. Hears him in the buzzing of bees, laughing and joyful. Feels him in the warm night breeze, hugs of greeting, goodnights and goodbyes. He’s everywhere all at once and she missed him dearly. 

Perhaps she’s too hopeful, knowing that seeing him will most likely do more harm than good. But she needs to see him, after so long. 

Puffy takes a deep breath, steels herself as she holds it in her lungs until it burns, letting it out with each step until she’s inside, facing a startled warden. 

“Hi Sam,” she greets. She’s ready, unwavering. “I’m here to see Dream.” _My son._

Sam’s eyes go slightly wide before settling into something almost sad before nodding and pointing towards a sign in book. 

It’s empty.

“Has anyone come to see him?” She asks, looking at the blank page. Her hand doesn’t shake when she signs her name. 

Sam shakes his head. “No. I heard Tommy wanted to but Phil wouldn't let him, which, good.” Puffy nods along, agreeing, she wouldn’t let Tommy see him either if it was her. 

“I have to warn you,” Sam says as she follows him around the desk, placing her belongings in his hands to put away. She didn't bring much of anything anyways. “The visiting process is rather grueling.” 

Puffy only nods again. Face set and stern. “I want to see him.” 

“I know,” he sighs, it’s not exasperated only knowing. “I’m just, sorry in advance, I’m sure this is already difficult.”

She smiles then, tired and worn. “It is. But parenthood often is,” she says, chuckling softly at the look in Sam’s eye that seems to say _yes but not usually this difficult._ She can’t deny it. 

It feels like ages and still not enough time until she’s facing a wall of lava. She can feel the stinging heat of it despite the potions, she swallows around nothing. 

“He’s behind all of this?” she asks, knowing the answer. Sam only nods. He was right, this was truly grueling. 

“Puffy,” Sam starts, as the lava finally clears. “I’ll be right here, call out and I’ll get you immediately.”

She doesn’t have the words to thank him. They’ve died in her throat as she steps onto the moving panel, as a figure slowly comes into view. 

He’s sitting in his bed. Facing away from her, long locks of hair fanning across his face. He doesn’t have his mask, Puffy wants to cry at just that. She steps carefully, as if trying not to spook him, he still hasn’t even looked her way. 

_My boy._ She wants to shout. _My baby._ Dream only breathes, Puffy fills it filling her own lungs for the first time in weeks.

“Duckling,” she whispers, watches the way Dream startles, the way his neck snaps to look up at her. His eyes are wide and greener than emeralds, her son's eyes, she hasn’t seen in so long. She watches shock color his face, eyebrows scrunched and mouth open. 

“Mom?” he whispers back, timed and almost afraid. As if he spoke too loudly the vision of her would disappear. When was the last time he had called her mom?

She smiles, there’s tears burning in her eyes but she smiles. “Hi baby.” 

“Oh,” Dream gasps, “Oh, mom.” He nearly trips on himself as he rises, the chains around his wrists chime loudly in the cell, Puffy meets him halfway, until Dream is curled against her, the trail of cold metal along her side.

“Mom,” it’s a stuttered cry, shock and anguish. Puffy lets her own tears fall, wetting the hair beneath her as she presses kisses to the top of his head. “I’m sorry, I'm so sorry,” is all he repeats, broken and tired and hurt. 

She pulls away to cup his cheek, gazing into tear soaked eyes and red tinged cheeks. She gives a sob of her own as Dream leans his cheek into her palm, like he used too, nuzzling into it like it’s the safest place in the world. She smiles at him, through cries, she smiles and it’s painful and all too much but she’s holding her son in her hands, her baby, her Dream and she feels only the love she’s always felt when holding him. 

He looks spent as he clings to her shirt, as he sobs and sobs through broken apologies and she rubs away tears, like she used too so long ago. It’s heartbreaking and painful in the way a healing wound is. Tender and aching. 

It’s more than a few minutes until they’ve both calmed down enough. They’re sitting on his bed, Puffy awkwardly cradling him in her arms, he's truly outgrown her. Still they sit, Puffy tries not to break as a familiar twirl of fingers finds her hair. She kisses his forehead, watches the lava run down at the end of the room, watches the clock on the wall tick by, listen to her son breathe in and out. 

“I’ve missed you,” he says, once he managed to keep air in his lungs, voice hoarse and low. 

“I’m here,” she replies, holding him tighter as his shoulders shake. 

“Did the lavenders grow mom?” He whispers after a long enough silence she thought he had fallen asleep. She smiles, small tears on her cheeks. Nodding a bit as she sniffles.

“Would you like to see them Dream?” she asks, the implications of it clear in the air. Dream shakes through another sob, curling impossibly closer to her. He manages a nod, she runs her fingers through his hair. 

Her arms are sore as she holds him, a familiar soreness, welcomed one. She thinks of her empty home, of the sorrow it houses and of the amount of pain Dream had left behind. She thinks of the road ahead and what it has in store for them, she thinks of the child he used to be, of the man in her arms. 

She loves them both, she always will, she hopes he knows that. 

“I’ll be waiting for you to see them,” she tells him and Dream nods again. His hands are battle rough in her own, his body heavy with a guilty soul. She holds him like the first time, until he stops crying, she loved him then.

As she loved him now.

It hurt in a different way. 

**Author's Note:**

> Man Puffy wrote those 16 pages and I just went wild everyone say Thank You Puffy. Alexa play class of 2013. Have y’all seen that animatic? y’all should.
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Zoldyke_)
> 
> Hope ya enjoyed!


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